Embodying Osiris: The Secrets of Alchemical Transformation by Thom F Cavalli PhD

by Thom F. Cavalli

The modern Western movement to embrace Eastern spiritual traditions usually stops with India and the Orient. Westerners have yet to discover the wisdom that dates back even further to ancient Egypt. With a Jungian perspective, clinical psychologist Dr. Thom F. Cavalli plumbs that wisdom through the myth of Osiris, the green-skinned Egyptian god of vegetation and the Underworld. As no one else has done, Cavalli draws on Osiris’s death and resurrection as a guide to spiritual transformation. The myth represents the joining of the conscious and the unconscious, the light and the dark, life and death, and shows how to live our temporal existence in service to and anticipation of eternal life. Cavalli sees the ancient art of alchemy — which attempted to turn lead into gold — as the key. The alchemical recipe "solve et coagula" (solution and coagulation) encoded in the myth describes the integration of all parts of a person and the method for achieving an experience of immortality in life and eternal life after death. The Osiris myth thus provides a model for the contemporary quest for individuation, the Jungian term for integrating ego and self, body and soul, in the process of becoming whole.

Genres: Psychology, Alchemy, Nonfiction, Magic

Unknown Binding

First published November 1, 2010

Reviews

[Oscar · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thorough discussion of the Ancient Egyptian mindset/mentality with some interesting, though hypothetical ideas on the development of psyche. The book concludes rather out of nowhere with a prescription of shamanistic grounding. Nothing wrong with that but it follows in no direct way from the jungian discussion. While the reasoning for it is layed out, the concept of emobided awareness could use further elaboration. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who isn't interested in jungian ideas, but within that field this is probably a good book.

[Brady · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some good ideas here, but his prose style is flowery and imprecise and the book is in my opinion poorly edited.